The Deck - Rebecca Williams (6 of Clubs, Nebraska)

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

Our card this week is Rebecca Williams, the 3 of Clubs from Nebraska.For 13-year-old Becca, the summer break before her freshman year of high school was supposed to be a time for a fresh start. Gaining some new-found independence… maturing into a young woman…But because of the brutal actions of a predator, Becca will forever remain a girl, frozen in time… stuck in the summer of 2003.If you know anything at all about the 2003 homicide of 13-year-old Rebecca “Becca” Williams in Omaha, Nebraska, you can contact the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office Tip Line at 402-444-6000. View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/rebecca-becca-williams Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org.The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AFText Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Our card this week is Rebecca Williams, the six of clubs from Nebraska. For 13-year-old Becca, the summer break before her freshman year of high school was supposed to be a time for a fresh start, gaining some newfound independence, maturing into a young woman. But because of the brutal actions of a predator, Becca, as her family knew her, will forever remain a girl, frozen in time, stuck in the summer of 2003. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. Music It was close to 2 a.m. on June 19, 2003, and 15-year-old Daniel was in bed, wide awake, probably tossing and turning, because he'd seen something the day before, an image now

imprinted in his mind. He'd been out riding bikes with his friends, 11-year-old Cory and 15-year-old Matt, and they were riding around the park meadow mobile homes in Omaha, Nebraska, when one of his buddies spotted something shocking, something you'd never expect to run into on a typical lazy summer afternoon. So now, in the wee hours of the morning, even though the boys had promised not to tell anyone what they'd found, Daniel couldn't shake what he'd seen. He just had to tell an adult. Here's Douglas County Sheriff Deputy Mike Decellis reading from a part of Daniel's statement.

I awoke my dad and told him what I had seen. He told me we'd check it out tomorrow. And then at 7 a.m., my dad took me to school. At 12, 10 p.m., my dad picked me up and we went to the trail so I could show my dad what I saw. And then we called the police. In case the word school threw you off there, it seems like Daniel was enrolled in a summer school and what he'd seen were badly decomposed human remains.

Apparently Daniel's dad had just assumed his son was having some kind of nightmare, maybe even just telling a tall tale or something. He didn't seem to really take it seriously until they visited the area together the following day. Investigators talked to all three of the boys who were present when her body was found, and it seems like their stories matched up. We have a statement from 15-year-old Matt where he told deputies they had ditched their bikes to eat some berries and they were wandering around a wooded area near the park when Matt

himself spotted what appeared to be a foot sticking out of the brush. And although the remains weren't easily recognizable, when detectives made their way out there, they assumed who they were looking at was 13-year-old Rebecca Williams, better known as Becca. It was a safe bet since the girl had been missing for about two weeks by that point. Here's Becca's mom, Shelley McCormick, recounting the days she saw her pre-teen daughter leaving their home for the last time. At that time, there were like four or five streets that you knew the kids were going

to be at or at the playground. Becca had an understanding that she always had to check in. If she wanted to go to somebody's house, that's fine. If you're leaving that house, you have to call and talk to me so that I know where you're going. We had the understanding that particular day that she could go to the park, she had to be home at 8.30. And she had gone to the park with her friends hundreds, thousands of times. We weren't real concerned because they always went in a group, they always came back in a group. What Shelly hadn't known was that on that particular day the other girl Becca had gone to the park with and all of the other kids who she assumed would be there too because they normally were,

they had all gone home early. I had just put the two little ones down to bed and I went out and I looked at the the two little ones down to bed. And I went out and I looked at the clock, and it's like, date 35. OK, she's like, she had a habit of chattering. So she was usually 10 to 15 minutes late. So I wasn't worried. 15 minutes late, she still wasn't there.

I didn't know that the other girl had left early. So I called her mom and said, hey, did Becca come home with your daughter? And she's like, no. And then I talked to her daughter and she said, no, she was still there. So I drove over there and there was nobody at the park. So then I went back and I grabbed my cell phone

and I'm calling my mom and I'm like, I can't find Becca. She's like, hang up, call the police. That's when I called them. According to Shelly, a detective who came out and spoke to the family said something along the lines of, let's just wait and see. At her age, maybe she just ran off. She was actually supposed to catch a plane in about two weeks to start living with her

dad in Las Vegas and begin her ninth grade year at a new school out there. So I'm thinking investigators may have thought that gave her a reason to run away, if that's what happened. But Shelly and those who knew Becca best were not having it. One, she was terrified of the dark, like girl took a nightlight with her

when she slept over at other people's houses. She would not be out roaming the streets alone in the middle of the night. And two, she left all of her belongings at home. Even a Visa gift card that she'd received. And three, she just wasn't the kind of kid to disobey her mom. Ten minutes past curfew, sure, no big deal, but Becca had never pulled a stunt like this before.

I did not feel like they took it seriously enough. I had cousins, my brother, Becca's father came up when she disappeared. And then my mom watched the other kids and all of us went out searching and just trying to figure out what had happened. And we were getting so much rain at that time. And it wasn't until her body was found

that they even asked for her toothbrush or for the ID kit where you have their picture and their fingerprints. Family, friends, church members, and even random people in their close-knit community participated in foot searches, putting up flyers, things like that. But it appears one of the only things police were really able to establish prior to her

body being found was that Becca was last seen at the park by some other neighborhood kids at around 6.30 p.m. or so the night of June 3rd. But all those kids seemed to have left before her, and no one could really pinpoint the very last person to be with her. And no one had a clue where she'd gone after the rest of them went home. What was so frustrating was that in all of those days of searching, Shelley had been so close to her daughter the entire time. Call it a mother's intuition, but Becca had been right where she said she'd be. There's a bridge that you can walk over. And we walked over that bridge.

And we went down on this side, but that side is a closed gate. So we didn't go in there because we don't even know whose property it is for sure. And that's where she was, was in there. So you had probably been within like a few hundred feet and just didn't realize. Hindsight is 20-20. And at the time that specific area was never searched. But now on June 19th, they knew where Becca was,

where she had been all along. Deputies descended on their neighborhood park. What was supposed to be a summertime sanctuary was now roped off as a crime scene. Becca was found on her back, partially unclothed. She had socks on and investigators found her bottoms close by in some tall weeds. Right away, they suspected a sexual assault had occurred, but because

her body had been out in the June heat for about two weeks, her manner of death would be more difficult to determine. The state of decomposition of the body really limited what could be gained from physical evidence. There was really no chance of any suspect DNA being recovered due to the decomposition. There was a follow-on search conducted I think after the autopsy was determined that the hyoid bone was not present. Due to the extensive decomposition around the face and neck it was suspected that strangulation was a cause of death. That would normally be determined by finding a hyoid bone, seeing that it was broken

while the person was still alive. Extensive follow-on searches occurred where the body was found and in the drainage features around there, and it was just never located. It's a small bone. You never know. There's wildlife.

It still borders on farmland in the country, and back then it would have been significantly more rural So you kind of you get what you get and I don't think that there was Anything that could point to a suspect that was recovered by crime scene investigators at the scene Investigators tried but Becca's body was too decomposed to gain any forensics from a swab or sexual assault kit. So with seemingly little viable evidence at the crime scene, detectives got started tracking down and talking to all the kids in the neighborhood. With their parents present, of course. They were mostly trying to nail down which kids were at the park and at what times. Several teens had been there that night off and on, but the rest was a bit hazy.

Honestly, it was a bit hard to figure it all out because Becca had so many friends. I did not realize how many people she had touched until her funeral. Our church, we had standing room only in the back and there were people in the hallway because they could not fit in. And when we went from the church to the grave site, we were there for almost an hour before the last car got there and the people were able to be brought up. So I mean, she just touched many, many people. And I know that it's because she was so giving and she had no problem. She

didn't care what color your skin was. She didn't care where you came from. She put you in two categories, nice or mean, and that was it. She didn't care about anything else. You were either a nice person or you were a mean person and that was it. And if you were a mean person, she tried everything she could to turn you to nice. She succeeded with a couple. Although Sweet Becca didn't seem to have any known enemies, there was one kid. Someone rumored to have a bad boy reputation who was standing out amongst all others.

The boy catching investigators' attention was a 13-year-old named Matt. And this is not the same Matt in the group of boys who found Becca's body and made the pack to keep it a secret. That was 15-year-old Matt Kidder. This was 13-year-old Matt Kidder. This was 13-year-old Matt T. T is just his last initial, by the way. We're not using his full name. But Matt T kept popping up over and over. They're going door to door within the trailer park. They're finding out who did Rebecca hang out with.

She had perhaps had some sort of juvenile flirting relationship with this male and I believe that they had established either through an actual crime report or just through statements of people who knew him that he did have his young but a certain history of violence against women. And I think that that preliminary indication of a propensity for violence towards women really led the investigation down a rabbit hole of considering him a primary suspect. Shelly wasn't super familiar with this Matt T kid. But in

retrospect, she realized she had met him once, literally just a few days before Becca disappeared. It was when her daughter was asking if she could go to that same park to hang out with a group of neighborhood kids. I made her introduce me to the kid that she was going to go to the park with. It was her and another friend, a couple of friends that I knew. And then there was a new boy. And I made her introduce him before I let her go that night

Or the actually that was a couple days before that but I didn't really get to know know him I only saw him in the one time just one time very briefly and The only reason I still let her go that day which like I said that was a couple of days before Was because there were three other girls that I did know that were going with them as well. So safety in numbers, it was just one boy versus the three girls,

plus a couple of the boys that I did know and that I did trust. So I did let her go that day. And then I didn't hear anything else about him until after. Other witnesses, kids and teens who knew both Becca and Matt T seemed to be confirming that you did have some type of juvenile relationship at some point. But allegedly, it seemed like Matt T had maybe been bragging to his friends about Becca. Insinuating their relationship had been far more intimate than it really was. There's an unconfirmed report from another child

that Matthew T. had made reference to some sort of physical relationship that he had had with Rebecca, I think, as she was in the news, which is where they then went back to that witness who said that he had intimated a physical relationship, who then denied it. So another person who was interviewed said that Matt T had told him, I got on that.

That one is Slater recanted that statement, said that he couldn't remember. But I think that that's probably the first time that Matt T came up as a potential suspect. When news started spreading that investigators were eyeing a 13-year-old boy for the likely sexual assault and murder of a girl just as young, obviously the entire community was both devastated and appalled. Matt T and his mother agreed to an initial interview with detectives in which Matt T denied killing Becca. But he did confirm that he was with her at the park between 6.30 and 7 p.m. on June 3rd.

He also admitted that he had kissed her, fondled her, had even tried asking her for sex the night before her disappearance, but she rejected his offer. So he was making it sound like there had been some kind of consensual relationship going on there, but that's about it, nothing serious. And this lined up with what their friends were saying too. Becca and Matt T had a fling at one time or another. Past or present flirting, it was kinda all the same to detectives. What they were concerned with more than anything

was something they spotted on Matt during their interview. Something a deputy took note of in the interview summary. It was a scab on Matt T's cheek. So with this very circumstantial evidence, they were able to search Matt T's house. I think they took obviously all the DNA type things, hair, saliva, etc. I think that they took or recorded imprints of shoes, that sort of thing, which I don't think there was any corresponding evidence at the scene. The first real piece of fairly robust evidence

they did have was hair recovered from Becca's clothing. But I'm not going to build this one up just to let you down. I'll spare you and go ahead and say that although the testing proved it was Matt T's, it didn't end up being significant. It was determined there wasn't any real probative value in it because he admittedly had close contact with Becca in the days before her murder, and she was believed to have worn the same clothes for more than one day. But it was at some point after that first questioning that Matt T's family lawyered up

and cut off any further contact. His attorney made it clear that there would be no more interacting with his minor client. And since there was no hard evidence, there was nothing more detectives could do to push back on that. They had to respect it. Though they were still very much focused in on him.

So for the months following, try as they might to build a case against Matt T., all they got seemed to be hearsay. Anecdotes of him being creepy, sometimes violent towards girls. There was nothing solid. All stories that just made Matt T. look bad. And as our reporting team watched Deputy Decellis flip through Becca's old case files, he was completely transparent with us.

Looking back, there was some tunnel vision centered on Matt T. That pattern of poor supervision that we just tend to see where you can pick anyone within this sometimes troubled community and decide that you want them to be the suspect. And if you only look for facts that confirm it, that's what you find. Not having been there myself, I just

get the impression from the reports that they were looking for that confirmation with Matthew T. and that confirmation bias led them down a path that was not productive to solving the case. Real quick, I just want to call out something here. From what our reporting team personally experienced, Deputy Mike Decellis over at the Douglas County Sheriff's Office is a class act. I never expect to walk into a department and have them show me a cold case that was perfectly handled. If it was perfectly handled, it'd be solved, right?

So let's cut the act. We don't show up trying to shame someone or throw a former detective under the bus. We want to get this stuff solved. So I have so much respect for someone who gets it. You can't go forward unless you acknowledge where you've been, where a case has really been. Otherwise, how are we gonna do anything differently this time around?

I have nothing but respect for law enforcement officers who are willing to reflect back and be honest about what went wrong. Decellis made it clear he means no disrespect towards his predecessors. You wouldn't be human if you didn't make mistakes, didn't have things you regret about the way you handled a case. But the difference between being an average human and being a standout investigator is constantly looking to find where you messed up, bringing that to light instead of tucking it away in the shadows. Because there's no ego in good investigating.

That's my rant. It's over. So Detective Juchelis acknowledges that all sights were set on Matt T. And no one else was really being strongly considered. So when a grand jury was called to review Becca's case, one can only make guesses as to who was being looked at or what evidence was presented. And this might not seem like a big deal in true crime you hear about grand juries all the time, but this was actually super rare in Nebraska.

Like grand juries usually only happen there when a person dies while in police custody. This was going to be the first time one was called in Nebraska in 25 years. So maybe they had more up their sleeve. Douglas County public defender Tom Riley, who was representing Matt T., made some public statements to the press during this time. And by the way, his client's name wasn't public knowledge back then, because he was a minor. We only know who Riley was talking about now after the fact.

According to reporting in the Omaha World Herald, he said that his client, who was now 14 at the time, was apprehensive, scared, and confused by the entire process. That's part of the reason he made the choice for him not to appear before the grand jury, which is totally legal and happens all the time. Matt T didn't have to speak or risk incriminating himself in any way. Riley also talked about how he thought the whole concept of a grand jury was kind of slanted in his opinion, given the fact that there's no judge and the only people who can ask questions are the prosecutor and the jurors.

He saw no point in having his child client testify. Of course, grand juries are closed proceedings. So outside of the fact that Matt T didn't testify, which we know because of his lawyer's statement, we have no clue what went down behind those closed doors. But we do know the ultimate result. I'm guessing that they weren't comfortable bringing the charge based upon what was presented to them, but that they thought that there was enough there that probably at the urging of the sheriff's office administration at that time, that they agreed to take that unusual step to allow a grand jury of Matthew T's peers to decide whether the evidence merited a criminal charge.

I believe the technical term would be no true bill, which means that they found insufficient cause to file charges. No indictment on Matt T or anyone. So back to square one for the sheriff's office. But maybe this was all a blessing in disguise. Reviewing the case again from top to bottom would force them to finally look at other people.

Maybe there was something or someone they may have missed. Maybe someone who was there all along. Like one of the boys who found Becca's body in the woods. The one who made his friends swear not to tell a soul, the other Matt, Matthew Kidder. The area where Becca was found was super secluded, off the beaten path, not an area kids at the park were known to even go.

I mean, it was an area that a bunch of adults on foot didn't even traverse during two weeks of searching. But three boys casually just came across it? Now Deputy Decellis wants to give credit where credit is due. It was Deputy Jennifer Tinsley who seemed to be the one to zero in on Matt Kitter. It was an instinct she had early on that, unfortunately, got ignored until now. I believe that she thought he merited further investigation right from the beginning. She actually stepped in at one point when he was being interviewed, when Matthew Kitter was being interviewed on day one of the homicide investigation.

I believe that he denied doing anything about whether it was her in the woods, how she'd gotten there, all of that. It's my impression because whenever I was assigned by my lieutenant at the time to review this case, case violence was several years in the past now, and he said, basically, Tinsley's got good instincts on this. She wanted more investigation of Matthew Kidder at the time and was kind of shut down on it. In the interim, he's been convicted of raping and strangling one woman and went to prison, got out,

did the same thing to another victim who did die. So he's in prison for the rest of his life, basically because the crimes that he's been convicted of are very similar to what we suspect happened to Rebecca, and you don't get much more involved than finding the body. Those violent crimes Decellis is talking about didn't seem to start until 2008. Before that, it doesn't appear that this guy had any type of real rap sheet. 2008 was the assault and, according to local KETV news in Omaha, 2016 was when Matt Kidder was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a longtime family friend, 28-year-old mother Jessica Nelson.

Jessica was found strangled to death nude inside her bathtub. Matt Kidder had always been on the radar in Becca's case as a witness because he found her body. But in 2016, when he was found guilty of sexually assaulting and killing Jessica, it only made sense for detectives to take a harder look at him. But it took a few years. And in 2019, when Deputy DeCellis started reviewing the case files for himself,

he looked back at Matt Kidder's original statement about how he claimed he came across the body, how he said he wasn't even at the park with Becca the night she went missing. After preparing himself by reviewing interrogation tapes from the Omaha PD regarding those other crimes that Matt Kidder committed, Decellis felt like the only thing left to do was go talk to Matt about Becca himself. So he made a trip out to question Matthew Kidder, specifically about Becca's murder. What were you expecting?

A nice cold killer. I mean, you know, this guy who rapes and strangles women, right? You don't expect him to have an emotional response to what he's done. And now, to be clear, he doesn't acknowledge that he's done the things for which he was convicted. But he does. He feels remorse for things that he's done. It's expressed in atypical ways. He's someone you can sit down and have a conversation with. You expect a murderer, that that's the sum total of what they are.

Personally, I didn't, even after watching the interviews and seeing that he was a conversant person, I didn't expect him to be an intelligent person. I was, again, something else I had to readjust whenever I was speaking with him. He is a very intelligent person. You know, he has interests outside of criminality, the same as anyone else.

He had a job. He spoke openly, I think, in an interview with the Omaha homicide detective about how embarrassing it was after his first conviction to have to come to the sheriff's office to register as a sex offender, to update the registry, to do his periodic registries. He is somebody who has raped and murdered women, but he's also a complete person outside of that terrible aspect of himself. And so I was expecting him to be less complete than he was.

Matt agreed to talk with him without an attorney. And Decellis made it clear he wasn't there to offer immunity or any favors. He just wanted to give Kidder the chance to give an honest statement. Kidder said he remembered being interviewed back when the homicide happened in 2003, but didn't recall specific details. He basically just reiterated the same thing he told investigators back then. Something noteworthy that DeCellis realized when he looked back on Kidder's original statement though, was that apparently Kidder had denied even knowing Becca. He said he only recognized her from the missing person flyers that were up around town.

But in reality, Kidder had met her at least once through a buddy named Chris. They would have been familiar with each other through the neighborhood, too. But Kidder didn't have an explanation for why he would have lied about this back in 2003. As Decellis continued on, Kidder became frustrated that the deputy was acting like he had something to do with Becca's murder and that he felt like law enforcement was only trying to pin it on him because of his prior convictions, which by the way he strongly maintains his innocence in even though there's DNA evidence there. So yeah. Now when

recounting finding Becca's body, he kept referencing just getting close enough to see a sock. This sock thing kept coming up, it was kind of odd. Kidder recalled that making that traumatic discovery was a big deal for him at the time, and he insinuated it greatly impacted his life. We started to talk about the emotional impact on him once I recognized that in fact there was one. And he told me that since around the time that the body was discovered

was about as specific as he was willing to get. He has nightly or near nightly night terrors that wake him up of women in peril. I guess would be the shortest way to sum it up. You know, they don't sound like fully formed visual memories that he has, just women in distress. Decellis asked if this mystery woman in his dreams might be Rebecca Williams, and Matt responded that he couldn't be sure. He went on to say that his grades slipped the following year and that he got very temperamental and was angry a lot. He said, quote, I don't remember the last time I actually slept through the night.

It's been a while, end quote. Deputy Decellis wonder if any of the neighborhood kids from Park Meadow ever accused this Matt of having involvement in Becca's murder. And he said, yeah, he remembered accusations coming up here and there, but he said it was only because residents were confusing him with Matt T., the boy who was being looked so hard at at the time. I felt like there was definitely more that he was not sharing with me.

And personally, I thought that we were getting to the point where there was no point in continuing. And then shortly before I was going to conclude it, I asked him about one of the inconsistencies from the time, which was that some of the juveniles that had been hanging out at the park with Rebecca the night that she went missing had said that he was there. And at the time, I don't think that he ever was willing to acknowledge that. Back in 2003, he did ultimately tell me that, yes, you know what, now that I gave him the name of the person specifically who had said that, and he said, you know what, she's right.

Basically, what it came down to was he acknowledged that he had walked away from the park with Rebecca towards the, they call it the bridge, it was like a fallen tree that went across the creek bed that was just like a shortcut back to the trailer park. That creek bed and area that he is describing is 500 feet north, maybe a thousand feet north of where the body was ultimately found.

He acknowledged that he walked with her towards the tree line and trailed off and wouldn't go any further than that. So I confirmed with him, so you're the last person who saw her alive. And, you know, we reached an agreement about that. And that's as far as he was willing to go. Decellis is a deputy, not a psychologist.

But the conversation definitely gave him insight into Matt Kidder's possible criminology. It was like he would hint at some type of guilt, like those strange, reoccurring dreams about women and anguish. But he would always be careful not to take it over the boundary of admission. Something chilling that sticks with me is how Kidder responded when Decellis asked him what he remembered most about Rebecca. He initially said that he couldn't really say and didn't know her very well. But then he said, maybe her smile.

I feel like he's somebody who is suppressing something within himself. And I feel like as an intelligent human being, he is generally able to keep a tight rein on whatever dark impulses he has. But at some point, they do come out. When they last spoke in 2020, Matthew Kidder seemed to still have some options open for appeals on his other unrelated convictions. But according to Decellis, those days are now over. He has exhausted all efforts and is set to remain in prison for life. So with that revelation, our reporting team

wondered if it was maybe time to reach back out to him again. So we wrote to him, asking if he'd be willing to speak with us or even provide a written statement. We mailed the note to him in prison. And a representative with the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services got back to us and said that unit staff at the reception and treatment center

where Matt's being housed confirmed that Mr. Kidder did indeed receive our letter. Since we've yet to get a response, as of this episode dropping, we're assuming he didn't want to talk to us. But we tried. And Matthew, if you somehow get wind of this podcast, we're still all ears. When we met with Becca's mom during our trip to Nebraska, we invited her to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office so she could connect with the new guy looking into her daughter's case, Deputy Decellis, for the first time.

Was it just today that you learned that they were thinking about someone else? Yes. I don't remember that name. Matthew Kidder. Yeah. Maybe after I think about it for a while, maybe I'll recognize the name, but as of right now, I don't recognize that name at all. So today was the first time that I heard that name. What are your thoughts about learning that today? I mean, that's got to be something you probably haven't even digested it yet. Not really.

It'll probably be a day or two. As you can imagine, this has been a lot of news for the family to process. For a long time, they were given the name of someone detectives thought could be responsible, and now the Douglas County Sheriff's Office says they are no longer focusing on Matt T. as a suspect. At this point, he is not being looked at. To their surprise, the family was getting thrown this new theory that involved a different potential perpetrator, one who detectives are now redirecting their attention to, Matthew

Kidder. But for Becca's family, it's never been about finding all the answers. Because even when justice hasn't prevailed, a little peace of mind can mean almost as much. I doubt that we will ever get answers. I mean, that'll be 21 years. I don't think we'll ever really get answers, but knowing that the person that did it is in jail, even if they are charged for something else, just knowing who did it so that we can put it to bed and we can feel like she has justice, I think that's what's most important.

I don't want to see him. I don't want to talk to him. I would like for somebody to ask him why. That's all I want to know. Why? What did she do that was so wrong? Obviously, 13-year-old Becca did nothing wrong. There was nothing she could have ever done to deserve the senseless brutality she got. The only one who should feel guilt is the person responsible for what happened to her. Becca and her mom shared something in common, their love for writing. Brilliant Becca was actually working on her very own book about two little girls who had found a home away from home, a special little safe haven.

And Shelley can sleep a little easier at night, knowing that's the kind of place where her daughter is right now. Laughing, smiling, spreading kindness and love as she did through her short time here on Earth. And I'm gonna close out this episode with a poem that Shelly wrote about her children, about Becca, because I think it sums up this episode perfectly.

There are times when we just can't understand why things happen that are not planned. Those are the times we can only love and pray to God up above. For when parents have done all they can, they must put all problems in God's hands. We need the right people to start talking, to tell the truth. Maybe you can provide more information about this crime. So if you know anything at all about the 2003 homicide of 13-year-old Rebecca Becca Williams in Omaha, Nebraska

you can contact the Douglas County Sheriff's Office tip line at 402-444-6000. The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?